


ghost at the docks

by GalacticGoat



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Growing Up, M/M, More tags to be added, Strangers to Friends to Lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-14
Updated: 2016-11-14
Packaged: 2018-08-30 21:35:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8549959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalacticGoat/pseuds/GalacticGoat
Summary: Stealing wallets is less a question of morality, and more a question of survival, nowadays.





	

 

Stealing wallets is less a question of morality, and more a question of survival, nowadays.

Kaneki’s never been particularly good at it. His hands shake when he reaches into a stranger’s pocket, and when it’s time to run, the only direction he seems to move is face-first, onto the ground. It’s a miracle he hasn’t been caught. Actually, it’s _beyond_ a miracle. It’s some sort of twisted destiny or fate, one that tells him he simply _can’t_ be arrested because then he couldn’t continue to steal.

So he does what he has to. And he does it with a grace of a drunkard. It doesn’t really matter how it happens, as long as the proper amount gets into the boss’s hands when it’s due. It’s simple in theory. But with winter sitting on the horizon, the demands are getting higher, and Kaneki’s morale is getting lower.

It’s cold and the air smells like rotten wood and fish guts and Kaneki can’t stop thinking about how warm his bed is. He’s been sitting by the docks for the past hour, watching sailors undock and merchants set shop as the sun creeps upwards, barely visible through the sky’s screen of grey. He doesn’t want to be here. He never wants to be here, especially when he _could_ be sleeping. But it’s the the best place for prime pickings, and he hasn’t had a proper meal in three days.

A few passersby give him curious looks as they wander by. It’s understandable, because at this point, everything he’s wearing is a mishmash of practical and ugly. He’s not freezing though, and he tells himself that that’s enough for him to be okay, but the blush on his cheeks tells another story. Maybe if he earns enough, the boss will get him a new set of clothes.

...Maybe.

Then the first tourist wanders by, and the tunnel vision starts. He can always tell who’s foreign and who’s local. Locals keep their belongings close to their chests, well-learned paranoia etched into the habit. Tourists, however, haven’t been trained into knowing better. This time, it’s a woman wearing a floral dress and wool coat. Her purse swings by her side and she walks through the crowd looking primped and pressed, a 5000 yen note in a sea of rusty coins. Kaneki is on his feet before the command even crosses his mind.

He walks the way Touka taught him, like a boy on a mission. He weaves his way between stands and chews his lip over prices, paces a few strides ahead, pauses. The only thing more suspicious than a boy wandering alone is a boy wandering alone aimlessly. Thirteen is a transparent age, and the more he acts like he’s not up to no good, the more people will _know_ that he’s up to no good. So today he’s a boy running errands for his mother.

The tourist is moving between stands slower than he is, and soon, he’s close enough that he can hear her voice. She talks gently, laughs softly, and the dull light glints off her glasses in a way that makes his stomach twist into knots. He reluctantly shuffles to her side.

She only has one strap of her purse slung over her shoulder, and it’s awful just how _trusting_ she seems to be. Kaneki regrets every thought that had crossed his head that had managed to get him out of bed this morning. He still moves closer.

The planets must have aligned for this precise moment, because she leans closer to the fish at the stand, clearly occupied as her bag’s opening widens, wallet in plain sight.

He stares at it. It seems to stare back.

He carefully reaches over, snatches it as quickly as his arm will allow, and stuffs it into his coat pocket. No one shouts. No one tackles him. He finally gives himself the luxury of breathing.

Nerves settled, he looks up. He meets someone’s eyes.

The merchant is watching him, mouth a flat line. He says nothing.

Kaneki clings to the silence like a beacon of hope. He offers a shy smile. Receives nothing in return.

Thoroughly spooked, he turns on his heel, casually strolling away despite the fact that every ounce of his being is frozen solid.

He focuses on placing one foot in front of the other. On breathing. On anything besides the fact that someone’s eyes are drilling holes through his shoulder blades.

The merchant hadn’t said anything--he hadn’t _seen_ anything. Kaneki is fine, he will be _fine--_

Then something comes crashing into the back of his head. He crumples to his knees before the pain even registers, twists around to find the merchant glaring, broom poised overhead.

“You’re the pickpocket that’s been plaguing this place!” he shouts.

“No,” he says, feeling slightly stupid when his voice wobbles, “that’s not me.” The wallet sits heavy in his coat’s pocket, and everyone in the vicinity knows he’s a liar. Kaneki is hit with the sudden urge to cry.

Since when has he had _any_ sort of reputation, here? He was supposed to be a ghost at the docks, nothing more than a shadow. _Why can this man see him_?

Kaneki has a barrage of thoughts in his head, but none of them bother to tell him to duck when the broom sweeps downwards. It cracks off the crown of his head. All he sees is white lightning. He scrambles to crawl away, but again, thirteen is a transparent age, and the merchant is three times the wiser. He grabs Kaneki by the shoulders and hauls him upright. His grip is painfully tight.

“Please let me go,” Kaneki says. He’s not sure what emotion is coming out of his mouth, all he feels is the impossible weight of his head on his shoulders, an oversized anchor.

“Like hell,” the merchant says. He shoves Kaneki in a direction that Kaneki _knows_ leads to the police station in the way a mouse cautiously notes where a pit of vipers is located. He bites his tongue. The merchant moves to shove Kaneki again, but this time, Kaneki’s legs are stubbornly locked. He ends up flopping onto the ground. The wallet digs into his stomach, a dull knife.

The merchant looks unsurprised. “Fucking teenagers,” he mutters under his breath as he pulls Kaneki back up, keeping his iron hold on Kaneki’s arm. “Move.”

“Please,” Kaneki tries again. He knows he sounds pathetic, like an animal trapped on the roadside in a cardboard box, but he’s desperate. The boss’s voice is pounding in his head; _if you get caught, you’re as good as dead to me_. He wasn’t one to leave loose ties flapping in the breeze. Kaneki’s not sure over how or when it would happen, but the phrase “good as dead” from the boss was synonymous with plain and simple “dead”. And Kaneki doesn’t want to die.

When Kaneki finally manages to look into the merchant’s eyes, he can see something familiar. There’s frustration as loud as a foghorn, layers of it stacked on more and more layers, all building up to a boiling point. Kaneki flinches before the merchant’s hand even winds backwards.

He knows what it’s like to take a hit. It’s sudden and humiliating and awful in how it smolders minutes after it actually strikes, a temporary burn wound. But he _doesn’t_ know what it’s like to not get one he was expecting. The pebble ricochets off the merchant’s temple, his shoulder, then clatters to the ground. Kaneki gapes. The merchant turns, slow, ominous, in the direction the pebble came from.

“Who--” he says, and Kaneki wrenches his arm free. He sprints through the crowd of onlookers like his life depends on it, and it _does_ depend on it. The shouting from behind him is explosive and Kaneki’s heartbeat is explosive and if he doesn’t get away from this place _he’ll_ fucking explode so he runs as fast as his legs can move.

He trips his way off and away from the docks, onto a street lined with buildings. The merchant bays like a bloodhound. Kaneki whirls around the corner of a shop and rams straight into its garbage cans, which clang on the pavement in a way that lances right through his temples. He vaults them regardless, all while flipping through a million and one paths, searching for the direction that would be the least predictable. He pulls a sharp left, back into the busy street. There are footsteps behind him. He still wants to cry.

“Okay,” he wheezes to himself, then bolts across the street. Cars blare their horns and guilt settles in the back of his throat because he can’t slow and acknowledge the drivers, thank them for not ramming into him with their bumpers. He runs faster.

Back on the pavement, he swerves around walkers, and somewhere in the back of his mind, he thinks he’s on the verge of panic. Actually scratch that, he’s already there. He’s buried so deep in it he can’t tell which way is up or down.

Then someone clamps onto his hand. He’s yanked to a stop.

“No!” he yelps right as the stranger shouts “hey!” and Kaneki chokes on his next words. The stranger is his age, a boy towering above him.

“Follow me!” he says, and Kaneki, numb, follows.

They make another left, around the back of another shop, and back onto the street. They run the opposite way Kaneki was originally headed, towards the docks. And Kaneki wants to protest, he _really_ wants to protest. This feels stupid and reckless and thoughtless and above all else, wrong. Despite Kaneki’s unease, the boy tugs his arm without even looking back, self-assured.

He doesn’t know this boy. He shouldn’t _trust_ this boy. But in an extensive chain of dumb decisions, what’s one more? The past ten minutes have probably fried every cell in his brain, and he can’t think anymore.

They jog, then pace, then walk. They pass the docks, pass the shipyard, pass several streets that line the shore. The merchant’s voice fades, and Kaneki doesn’t particularly care about _when_ it vanishes, he only cares about the fact that it’s gone. He only realizes that they’ve wandered onto the beach when he feels sand squish under his ratty shoes.

“This’ll do,” the boy finally sighs. His legs fold under him, and he settles on the ground, looking up at Kaneki expectantly. The way he studies him, scours over his skin like he's looking for damage, causes something to click in Kaneki's head. Cautiously, he sits down next to the boy.

“Where’d you get the rock?” he asks. The boy shrugs.

“It got caught in my shoe while I was at a different port, and I decided to keep it.”

Kaneki slowly nods. “Why’d you throw it?”

The boy raises an eyebrow. “Does that really need an answer?”

Kaneki mulls over the question. Standing in his own shoes, he doesn’t understand it, not even remotely. So he lifts himself up, drops himself into the stranger’s shoes instead, and takes a good, long look.

“No,” he says. The boy hums in agreement. He takes a moment to stretch, languid and lazy, before surveying the waves.  

“You didn’t even fight back,” he comments.

The sand’s coldness is seeping through Kaneki’s pants. He hugs his knees, painfully self-conscious. “I don’t do that,” he answers quietly. The boy doesn’t seem to take this as a legitimate response, but he stays silent, twisting his lip in favor of speaking.

Then he scoots closer. Kaneki jolts. “What--”

“--The guy hit you pretty hard. Let me make sure you’re okay.” Unceremoniously, there’s a hand probing at his head, sifting through his black hair. Every nerve in Kaneki’s body sings with discomfort.

The boy’s fingers brush over a spot at the top of his skull, and his entire head throbs. Kaneki winces. Wordlessly, the boy’s touch lightens. He singles out the bruises littering Kaneki’s skin and dutifully reports them--two on his head, one on his arm.

“You’ll be okay,” the boy says, finally plunking back next to Kaneki.

Kaneki is now thankfully aware that this boy is less of a threat, and more of a trial. “What do you prescribe, doctor?” he asks sarcastically.

The boy takes a moment to think. “Ice,” he firmly answers. Then he cracks a crooked, thousand-watt smile.

Without Kaneki’s knowledge, his own mouth decides that it needs to reciprocate. “Okay,” he says.

The boy laughs. His skin is tan and freckled like he’s spent every day of his life fasting from the shade, and his hair is carelessly bleached, brown still poking out of his roots. His clothes are bright, and everything about him seems unreserved and painfully open. He acts like he has nothing to lose--like it’s _impossible_ to lose, and Kaneki can tell he’s a foreigner in the way he can tell day from night.

“Who are you, anyways?” he asks. And the boy smiles again. He worms a hand into his pants pocket, pulls something out that Kaneki can’t quite see.

“Nice to meet you,” he starts. “I’m Nagachika Hideyoshi, and I’m docked here with my dad for a few days while he sorts out some sort of contract with his employer--he’s a fisherman,” he adds.

“It’s nice to--” Kaneki says, out of custom, but his words sputter out and die. Nagachika is holding up the wallet, waving worn brown leather directly in Kaneki’s face. Kaneki is horribly confused. Horrified, in general.

  
“Now,” Nagachika says, leaning closer, almost menacingly. His breath smells like sea salt and ice and the shiver that runs down Kaneki's spine has nothing to do with the fact that he's cold.

“Why did you steal that woman’s wallet, exactly?”

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> uhm so... i'm alive!! surprise!! i promise i haven't been slouching around doing nothing for a few months, but life's been pretty hectic, and my writing just kind of? stopped feeling like something i was happy with? so i went silent for a while :^(
> 
> sincerest apologies that i'm starting this up instead of updating one of my million other fics... i think somewhere along the way i realized that my inspiration for them has trickled to a stop, or i've grown a little disenchanted with what i had already made--but chapters are in the works! i've been doing my darndest to update! 
> 
> this on the other hand, has had a lot of thinking over. it's not going to be super lengthy or have an extremely extensive plot, but i hope that it'll seem short and sweet. :^)
> 
> now for the usual disclaimer: sorry for misspellings, typos, errors, etc. i don't have a beta, i'm not searching for one at the moment. also, i wrote a LOT of this very quickly, so there are bound to be some mistakes. my brain likes skipping over words sometimes, rip. 
> 
> if ya wanna find me on another platform, my writing blog is galactic-goat.tumblr.com!
> 
> finally, last but not least, thank you so much for reading!
> 
> EDIT: so, recently i had a big breakthrough with plot!! and while a majority of this chapter is exactly the same, i had to change /one/ tiny detail: someone's name. so, if you read this before an update on 12/27/16, then i changed "yomo" to touka! that's all. :^0


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